Light source system for horticulture applications
A horticultural lighting fixture including a light bar including a plurality of solid state light sources arranged in a linear array along a longitudinal axis of the light bar; and a light bar support structure that couples with the light bar to support the light bar in a fixed spaced relationship with the light support structure, the light bar support structure including at least two fasteners at opposing terminal ends of the light bar support structure to attach to a vertical support.
Latest CURRENT LIGHTING SOLUTIONS, LLC Patents:
- Processes for preparing color stable red-emitting phosphor particles having small particle size
- Commissioning of lighting system aided by augmented reality
- Devices containing a remote phosphor package with red line emitting phosphors and green emitting quantum dots
- Color stable red-emitting phosphors
- ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT SOURCE FOR USE IN AN ENVIRONMENT FOR HUMAN OCCUPATION INCLUDING HARDWARE SAFETY INTERLOCKS
Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to a lighting system, and more particularly relate to a lighting system that can efficiently and flexibly provide uniform illumination in horticulture and other applications.
Indoor farming or horticulture may typically involve growing plants in one or more containers or pots arranged on shelves of a cart, where the cart may typically include multiple shelves.
A major concern of indoor farming is providing the requisite environment in a consistent manner to grow the plants therein in an efficient and sustainable manner. Various aspects related to the growth and viability of the plants must be provided and accounted for, including, for example, the required lighting, watering, feeding of nutrients, temperature and humidity (i.e., environmental) controls, etc. that promote healthy plant growth. Regarding the lighting of plants in indoor farming or horticulture, a key aspect is providing plants of the indoor farm with a consistent source of light, sufficient to support and encourage optimal plant growth. The arrangement of plants on grow carts may present some challenges to adequately and sufficiently lighting plants in an indoor farming application.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a lighting system to address one or more of the above-mentioned situations.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and form part of the specification, illustrate the present disclosure and, together with the description, further serves to explain the principles of the disclosure and to enable a person skilled in the relevant art(s) to make and use the disclosure.
Unless defined otherwise, technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as is commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this disclosure belongs. The terms “first”, “second”, and the like, as used herein do not denote any order, quantity, or importance, but rather are used to distinguish one element from another. Also, the terms “a”, and “an” do not denote a limitation of quantity, but rather denote the presence of at least one of the referenced items. The use of “including,” “comprising” or “having” and variations thereof herein are meant to encompass the items listed thereafter and equivalents thereof as well as additional items. The terms “connected” and “coupled” are not restricted to physical or mechanical connections or couplings, and can include electrical connections or couplings, whether direct or indirect.
The present disclosure relates to a lighting system that might find applications(s) in the context or environment of indoor horticulture or farming, though not limited thereto. In the context of an indoor farming environment, the growing environment might include one or more rows of grow carts rolled in between and/or against vertical supports that may fixed to the floor and/or ceiling (or other fixture). In some embodiments, one or more light bars may be mounted to these vertical supports at, for example, regular intervals that correspond to the shelves of the grow carts positioned adjacent or nearby such that, when a grow cart is positioned into position near the light bar(s), each shelf will have a light bar supplying light to the plants on that shelf.
As used herein, a “light bar” refers to a longitudinally configured lighting device that emits light along a longitudinal axis extending over at least a portion of a length of the device, where one or more individual sources of light (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs) or other solid state lighting devices) might be arranged along the longitudinal axis of the device to provide illumination over substantially a complete or nearly a complete, end-to-end, length of the light bar. In some embodiments, the sources of light comprising a light bar herein might be LEDs or other solid state lighting devices, although other sources of light might be used in some instances, unless otherwise stated or restricted when combined with other components and design considerations disclosed herein.
In some aspects, the grow carts of
In some embodiments, the configuration of a light bar support structure disclosed herein facilitates and supports an easy adjustment of the height of a lightbar above the plane of a shelf of a grow cart. In some particular embodiments, the height of a light bar above plants using the light bar support structures disclosed herein can be varied from about 4 inches above the plane of a shelf of a grow cart to about two—four feet above the plane of the shelf of a grow cart.
In some environments and contexts, a typical layout for grow carts in horticulture applications may be as depicted in
In some aspects, a uniformity, as well as surface photosynthetic photon flux density, PPFD (i.e., a measure of the amount of photosynthetic active radiation that arrives at a plant denoting the photosynthetically active photons impinging a given surface per second), may be measured for evaluation purposes on the middle cart 610, wherein a light source might be about six (6) inches above the plant surface. PPFD measurements will be used in some of the following disclosure to highlight the comparative effectiveness of different lighting systems discussed below.
In some embodiments herein, problems (including but not limited to those) noted in the above example may be addressed by a holistic approach as disclosed in some aspects herein. In some embodiments, modeled solutions have been realized using a combination of refractive optics and LED MCPCB (metal core printed circuit board) arrangements (although other technologies might be used in some embodiments) to significantly improve upon the results of
In one embodiment, a first refractive optic design 905 is shown in
In another embodiment, another (second) refractive optic 1100 of the present disclosure is shown is shown in
Referring to
In some aspects, a function of the refractive optic in
In accordance with the present disclosure, other types of refractive optics might be used in some embodiments and configurations, within the scope of the present disclosure. These other types of refractive optics might be implemented in combination with one or more aspects of the refractive optics disclosed hereinabove. For example,
In some aspects, the refractive optics designs disclosed in
In some embodiments, a significant part of the design effectiveness of a lighting system in accordance with some aspects herein might be gained based on the LED layout. As such, the present disclosure includes a number of different LED layout designs that might be implemented in one or mere embodiments.
In some embodiments, a LED layout in accordance with some aspects herein might include the LED layout illustratively depicted in
The four (4) clusters of LEDs may comprise red (R), blue (B), Green (G), and white (W) LEDs. In some embodiments, while
A simulation (e.g., modeling and analysis) has been performed with a varying length of the lightbar with reference to length of grow surface. Some results of the executed simulation are shown in
In some aspect, a significant impact to uniformity might be achieved by clustering LED's near the end of the light bars. This is especially the case of the lightbar length is significantly less than the length of the grow surface. An example of this clustering is shown in
A simulation was conducted for a lighting system having more LED's on the end (e.g., region 1705) and the refractive optic of
In some embodiments, the present disclosure incudes a clip-on lens (constructed of polycarbonate, for example) that might snap over either end of a lighting fixture and redirects missed light from about the last five (5) or six (6) LEDs toward the edge.
In some embodiments, a reflector might be added be added to a light bar in a lighting system herein, along the length of a lightbar and/or at the ends thereof. In some instances, a reflector might comprise a plastic extruded reflector that may be affixed to the light bar or in close proximity thereto to increase illuminance at the edges. Shown in
In some embodiments,
As shown in
While embodiments of the disclosure have been described herein, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the scope of the disclosure. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt a particular situation or material to the teachings of the disclosure without departing from the essential scope thereof. Therefore, it is intended that the disclosure not be limited to the particular embodiment disclosed as the best mode contemplated for carrying out this disclosure, but that the disclosure will include all embodiments falling within the scope of the appended claims.
For example, two or more light bars might be configured in multiple different groupings, as illustrated in
Furthermore, the skilled artisan will recognize the interchangeability of various features from different embodiments. The various features described, as well as other known equivalents for each feature, can be mixed and matched by one of ordinary skill in this art to construct additional systems and techniques in accordance with principles of this disclosure.
Claims
1. A horticultural lighting fixture comprising:
- a light bar including a plurality of solid state light sources arranged in a linear array along a longitudinal axis of the light bar;
- a light bar support structure that couples with the light bar to support the light bar in a fixed spaced relationship with the light support structure, the light bar support structure including at least two fasteners at opposing terminal ends of the light bar support structure to attach to a vertical support;
- a first refractive optic attached to the light bar in close proximity to the solid state light sources, the first optic converting Lambertian radiation emitted from the solid state light sources to a substantially batwing radiation distribution; and
- a second refractive optic that increases a photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) and uniformity at a surface illuminated by the solid state light sources, wherein the second refractive optic comprises a plurality of individual refractive optic components, each disposed in close proximity to one of the plurality of solid state light sources of the light bar.
2. The lighting fixture of claim 1, wherein the first refractive optic that increases a photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) and uniformity at a surface illuminated by the solid state light sources, as compared to the Lambertian radiation emitted from the solid state light sources in an absence of the first refractive optic.
3. The lighting fixture of claim 1, further comprising a reflector affixed to the light bar at least at one of a terminal end of the light bar and a longitudinal length of the light bar.
4. The lighting fixture of claim 3, wherein the reflector extends above a surface of the light bar less than about two (2) inches.
5. The lighting fixture of claim 1, wherein the plurality of individual refractive optic components are each disposed about 1 millimeter to about 3 millimeters in distance from one of the plurality of solid state light sources of the light bar.
6. The lighting fixture of claim 1, wherein the first refractive optic provides a batwing with a peak maxima of intensity at a minimum of about 50 to 60 degrees.
7. The lighting fixture of claim 1, wherein the light bar support structure is adjustable to vary a width between the opposing terminal ends of the light bar support structure, from about 12 inches to about 48 inches.
8. The lighting fixture of claim 1, wherein the light bar is selectively adjustable to vary an angle of the light emitted from the solid state light sources while maintaining the fixed spaced relationship between the light bar and the light support structure.
9. The lighting fixture of claim 8, wherein the light bar is selectively adjustable to vary the angle of the light emitted from the solid state light sources about ±5 degrees relative to a plane perpendicular to a neutral position of the light bar.
10. The lighting fixture of claim 1, wherein the solid state light sources comprise light emitting diodes, LEDs.
11. The lighting fixture of claim 10, wherein the LEDs comprise a combination of red, blue, white monochromatic LEDs.
12. The lighting fixture of claim 1, wherein the light bar support structure is adjustable to vary a width between the opposing terminal ends of the light bar support structure.
13. The lighting fixture of claim 1, wherein the light bar is removably coupled to the light bar support structure.
14. The lighting fixture of claim 1, wherein the solid state light sources are more densely spaced at least at one terminal end of the light bar relative to a spacing of the solid state light sources at locations other than the at least one terminal end.
15. The lighting fixture of claim 14, wherein the more densely spacing of the solid state light sources at least at one terminal end of the light bar relative to the spacing of the solid state light sources at locations other than the at least one terminal end increases a photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) and uniformity at a surface illuminated by the solid state light sources.
16. The lighting fixture of claim 1, wherein the light bar support structure includes at least two fasteners at opposing terminal ends of the light bar support structure to attach to a vertical support.
17. The lighting fixture of claim 16, wherein the at least two fasteners at opposing terminal ends of the light bar support structure removably attach to the vertical support.
18. The lighting fixture of claim 16, further comprising at least one set screw to secure the light bar support structure to the vertical support.
9951941 | April 24, 2018 | Klase |
10215385 | February 26, 2019 | Klase et al. |
10485187 | November 26, 2019 | Klase et al. |
20050005529 | January 13, 2005 | Brault |
20060198146 | September 7, 2006 | Lippis |
20150351325 | December 10, 2015 | Shelor |
20180084733 | March 29, 2018 | Adams et al. |
20180283656 | October 4, 2018 | Gommans |
20180347789 | December 6, 2018 | Moore |
20190327908 | October 31, 2019 | Goettle |
20200060103 | February 27, 2020 | Klase et al. |
- Copy of International Search Report and Written Opinion dated Sep. 15, 2021 which was issued in connection with PCT/US2021/036842.
Type: Grant
Filed: Jun 10, 2021
Date of Patent: Feb 27, 2024
Patent Publication Number: 20230119599
Assignee: CURRENT LIGHTING SOLUTIONS, LLC (Beachwood, OH)
Inventors: Raghu Ramaiah (Beachwood, OH), Mark Kaminski (Beachwood, OH), Jonathan Meyer (Beachwood, OH)
Primary Examiner: Tracie Y Green
Assistant Examiner: Michael Chiang
Application Number: 17/909,518
International Classification: A01G 7/04 (20060101); F21S 4/28 (20160101); F21V 5/04 (20060101); F21V 13/04 (20060101); G02B 27/09 (20060101); A01G 9/24 (20060101); F21Y 113/13 (20160101); F21Y 103/10 (20160101); F21Y 115/10 (20160101); F21V 5/00 (20180101);